Spontaneous skepticism: the interplay of motivation and expectation in responses to favorable and unfavorable medical diagnoses

The quantity of processing view of motivated reasoning predicts that individuals are more likely to spontaneously question the validity of unfavorable than favorable feedback even when the objective likelihood of the feedback is equivalent. Participants were videotaped self-administering a bogus medical test revealing either a favorable or an unfavorable result. In Studies 1 and 2, unfavorable result participants required more time to accept the validity of the test result and were more likely to spontaneously recheck its validity than were favorable result participants. However, unfavorable results also were perceived as less expected than were favorable results, even though the information supplied about their objective likelihood was identical. Study 3 showed that participants evaluating another student's results perceived favorable and unfavorable outcomes as equally likely, suggesting that the subjective likelihood of positive and negative feedback is also subject to motivational influence.     

Family Ties and Child Placement

The fundamental premise of this paper is the primacy of the child's experience of biological-familial continuity in establishing his sense of self and personal significance. This paper examines the effects of current child placement practices on the child's ties to his biological, foster, and adoptive families. It explores alternative practices that would take into account biological-familial continuity.Comment is invited.     

False memories for end-of-life decisions

OBJECTIVE: To examine people's false memories for end-of-life decisions. DESIGN: In Study 1, older adults decided which life-sustaining treatments they would want if they were seriously ill. They made these judgments twice, approximately 12 months apart. At Time 2, older adults and their self-selected surrogate decision makers tried to recall the older adults' Time 1 decisions. In Study 2, younger adults made treatment decisions twice, approximately 4 months apart. At Time 2, younger adults tried to recall their Time 1 decisions. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Percentage of participants who falsely remembered that their original treatment decisions were the same as their current decisions. RESULTS: In Study 1, older adults falsely remembered that 75% of their original decisions were the same as their current decisions; surrogates falsely thought that 86% of older adults' decisions were the same. In Study 2, younger adults falsely remembered that 69% of their original decisions were the same as their current decisions. CONCLUSION: Age alone cannot account for people's false memories of their end-of-life decisions; we discuss other mechanisms. The results have practical implications for policies that encourage people to make legal documents specifying their end-of-life treatment decisions.